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A series of 10-line short poems intended merely to get past writer's block.
DRAGONS
I strike sparks that eat away the shadows
Searing the tongues of origami dragons
In hopes of making them breathe flame again
I taste the ash in their mouths
As their paper scales blacken in ecstasy
Curling and crumbling into salt as their blood burns away
And I watch as the door unlocks and locks again
Wreathed in a halo of matches, an origami graveyard
Between here and tomorrow
CLOCK VOICE
Hold out a hand, wooden beam tempting
As a perch for ephemeral sparrows
To dance across the oaken face
Feel the chain strain against the heavy brass
Dragging gears into unwieldy submission
Churn out the reliable chimes of time
Grinding away the dusk
And ready a poultice of its passing
For those who stand on clock towers, yet again
Watching the sun entomb itself
WRITTEN DESERT
The pen chatters softly to itself
Eking out a living on the harsh plains
Careful notebook paper ridges
Where the wind blows with empty ideas
And the pen chatters softly to itself
Wishing for a pencil to keep it company,
For it is lonely work in the journal of nobody
With a field of scrawled words stretching out
Looped crops encircling the ruled edges of the world
As the poor pen chatters in dissatisfaction to itself
APRIL
Strange that I could catch a sunbeam
And let it pool in my hand like a cliché
Give up all hold on reality as I imagine it flowing, stretching
Yearning between my fingers toward the floor
Like sweet honey. I let it spill
The soft strands of memory splaying outward
Into a new star as I leap, running down the stairs
And out into the garden to follow its liquid path
(One April ago, I remember,
She too fed the flowers with gold)
KNIT ONE, PURL TWO
The needles hiss at each other
Silver snakes coiled to strike across
The mathematical imperfection of their creation
They battle for custody of the wool
Biting my hands with longing I do not feel
Let me knit myself into their internecine war
The simple bloodshed of iron
Comforting me with the clicks that sound out
Calls to war, drummer’s rhythms,
The shiny snapping of tiny cobras in my hands
END OF WINTER
Quietly, the snow takes its punishment
No word or screech, no unearthly wail
Goes up from the earth, but I hear it anyway
In the quicksilver rivulets that dance
Down streets, through gutters, between thirsty
Blades of grass that beg for the new dawn
The snow laments its passing quietly
Preferring not to argue with the clockwork sun
And the turning of seasons, as one dies after the other
With only soundless words to mark the passing of the snow
PROOF
I stand on the beach in hurricane country
Hair streamed back, shoelaces whipping in the wind
Waiting for the real gusts to blow
For the storm to come in with tooth and claw slicing
The air screaming, waves bucking the boats in harbor
Casting them from safe havens
Filling the sails with mad terrors, hulls come alive in the storm
I wait for the tempest to wake ghosts in the salt-stained houses
Lined along the shore like tilted boxes
And remind me, once and for all, that I am alive.
FIRST IMPRESSION
“Hello,” she said—Dorothy in pump heels
The dark hyperbolas of leather belying
A natural inclination to sweeping fields
Amber mornings on which no motorcycles
Cut through the silence like hacksaws through butter
And I wonder how she came to be here
In the Emerald City, rotting from the bottom up
And whether she yet harbors a natural inclination to gingham
Or if it is buried in her high profile computer archives—
Charmed away by the wizards of yesterday, chanting their unreal spells
CIRCUS
Instructions: take one strand of hypnotic trapeze
Braided with the opiate sequins of dancers, and
The smoky impossibility of jugglers, their torches
Orbiting them like fiery asteroids
Knot tightly with the applause of an audience uprooted
Stolen from their daily routines by Elvin hands
That shoo them back to half-imagined summers,
As they forget the children whose pudgy hands they hold
Mouths gagged with the narcotic flavor of cotton candy
And weave it all together, world upon world, into a tapestry of lights
WARM RAIN
I leap to catch the oddity of it
One raindrop on top of the other
My kindergarten haiku of bubbles spelled out
In red plastic boots on a granite-gray day
I am a mermaid in a lake of falling stars
With no need for shells or silly seaweed bras
Let me run naked, bare scales and fingers in the breeze, just for today
And later I will put my boots back on; I will be a good girl
And carry a crimson umbrella (which will do no good at all, of course,
When I go puddle-jumping again)
FACTORY
The metal arteries wrap around walls
Down corridors not built for human traverse
But for the lifeblood of this groaning machine
See what has come to life, the sterile grinding,
Dioxin breath belching out into the clouds
And deep down, in the belly of a monster
The tentacles of a heart spread out, reaching, reaching,
And shiver at the touch of tiny insects
Who trace the jaws of their creation, crawling down the halls
And lightly tap iron nerves, oblivious to the poison on the wind
HELLO TO CATBOY
You crouch, indecisive, in the window
A gangly mess of paws and slender legs
One ear up, the other down
As though listening halfway through the glass
Dark umber eyes caught for a second
In that moment of revelation
When all the pieces of the world fall together
And I stare, seeing white and ivory against the storm
My moment of still inferiority shattered as you slink away
And I find myself chasing cats through the rain
SCHEHERAZADE
I breathe the bane of winged creatures
Their poison sweet on my tongue, rough on my throat
In the half-coming darkness that hovers, waiting
The masonry walls their summer warmth
Dragging the cool air around my toes and laying in stores
Of dormant heat for the night
I am a citronella princess
Hands casting three shadows for each candle they pass
And I sit, giddy with the silence, wishing on each of my hundred birthdays
That I might live another night
EATING AIR
Rrrrip. I watch the roots dangle, offset by a good margin,
Glaring at the cactus in my hand
"Oh you prickly devil—what did you think?
That you would be spared repotting, somehow left out
Of the annual earthquake of your terra-cotta world?
Well, I’ve news for you
This cactus is far from the only one being uprooted
And I will do my part to rehabilitate it, relocate and re-educate
This, my wayward citizen—ha!
Thinking itself independent of me!"
EROSION
The bone dislikes its splintering sound
Eases up, and begs to be put back together
For it is near the breaking point,
And has shattered piece by piece for an eternity
Time has worn away with the regularity of a cave waterfall
(Splash by splash, step by step, into the breathless silence)
Shattering the stalactites with as little care
As one might a bone, a vein, a heart
Just one more construction molded by a million years
And taken down before the clock has marked another eon
CARDIAC ARREST
Error. Not enough oxygen input
Security system failing, inability to balance the brain
And they are banging on your door now
Issuing warrants and papers to search the house
Excuse me, sir, you are under cardiac arrest
And charged with the negligence of emotion
No, sir, it’s not my fault, or his, or hers
Didn’t you see that time was running out?
The hourglass turned over, and now there’s only
Error. Error. Error.
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